Friday, October 30, 2009

Nepali capital Kathmandu becomes regional anti-poaching secretariat

KATHMANDU, Oct. 28 (Xinhua) -- The regional meet of the delegates from Nepal, India, Bangladesh and Bhutan agreed on Tuesday to establish the South Asian regional anti-poaching secretariat in Nepal.

"The agreement is a great achievement in our favor and the secretariat will work as a regional network center for the anti poaching efforts," local newspaper The Himalayan Times cited Yubaraj Bhushal, Secretary of Nepali Ministry of Forests and Soil Conservation (MoFSC) as saying.

The meeting also set a target of increasing the population of the wild tigers to 6,000 by 2020.

"There are 16 landscape areas and 60 protected areas in the tiger range countries of South Asia. The meeting decided to work rigorously on those areas and principally agreed to increase the population of tiger to 6,000 by 2020," said Shiva Raj Bhatta, a spokesperson of the Department of National Parks and Wildlife Conservation (DNPWC), adding that South Asia is home to about 4,000tigers in their natural habitat.

The Nepali government and some international organizations including The Global Tiger Forum, The World Bank is organizing a four-day Kathmandu Global Tiger Workshop 2009 from Tuesday.

Prime Minister Madhav Kumar Nepal inaugurated the Workshop Tuesday, addressing the government was all set to save the endangered tiger population.

According to The Himalayan Times, Deepak Bohora, Minister for Nepali Forest and Soil Conservation said on the meeting that the area of the Bardia National Park (in the mid far western Terai, east of the Karnali River, Nepal) would be doubled for the purpose.

"The Bardia National Park area will be doubled and we have set up the target to increase the population of tiger to 240 by 2020,"said Bohora.

As per the plans, the area covered by the Bardia National park will increase to 1,868 square kilometers.

Earlier, representatives from the tiger range countries of South Asia had presented their papers at the workshop.